The Light Dawns!

Impossible to remember a time that I wasn't trying to figure out what it was I did that seemed to make my family feel so irked with me, that could explain what made Kerry feel horrendously unhappy in my presence.

Now, 37 years after Kerry shared her deep antipathy with Mom in a letter, I GET IT.  The light has finally dawned.  Will never know for positive sure, but my guess is that it somehow connects with my always & forever driving need to know WHY people think the way they do.  It's normal for me, so I just thought of it as being normal for everyone.  It's not.  And it's just my  good fortune that it doesn't make John's skin crawl as much as it does others'.

When I asked John - three times - "How are things (i.e. traffic) on your side?" and three times he said NOTHING, it wasn't a slam to ask, "What were you thinking?"  It was a genuine question.  How many times have I said to John, "What was the basis of that thought/action?  What were you thinking?"???  What was at the root of your action, what formed the basis of your thought.  Not what was the trigger.  What was the foundational concept that formed its groundwork.  

If John HAD gotten to the heart of WHY he was so sure I was turning right, not left, that he couldn't answer a question that seemed contrary to that turn, he would NEVER have answered, "I don't know."  He would have realized - as we both did, independently, later - that he expected I was heading to King of Tarts.  Which meant a right turn, not a left.  He didn't just think I would turn right, he had a darn good reason for thinking that.  And if he'd said to me, at the time, "I thought you were going to King of Tarts," all would have been clear.  But he didn't & that seemed utterly unlogical to me & utterly scary, since he didn't answer a clearly worded & repeated question.  

It's impossible to imagine how being around that sort of life approach - wanting to know the fabric of a person's thought, not just the thought - could drive people right up a wall.  And if I can't remember a time I wasn't trying to figure out what seemed to be experienced by my family as metaphysical fingernails on a chalk board, I sure as heck can't remember a time that wanting to know the deepest whys & wherefores didn't matter to me.  

The light dawns.  And although it doesn't change anything that was, doesn't change that I am as I am, it does make sense.  And I feel total sympathy for how over-the-top, screeeeeetching bad it had to be for others to experience.  Praise be, John gets it.  Imagine if he didn't??